Working Korea – Lateral Movementshttp://lateralmovements.com
Working my way around the world since 2003Wed, 21 Feb 2018 01:26:51 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.4http://lateralmovements.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/cropped-Lateral-Movements-32x32.pngWorking Korea – Lateral Movementshttp://lateralmovements.com
323226353773At Least The Samgyeopsal Is Very Famoushttp://lateralmovements.com/very-famous-samgyeopsal/
http://lateralmovements.com/very-famous-samgyeopsal/#commentsThu, 12 Jul 2012 07:47:10 +0000http://www.lateralmovements.com/?p=2945You may already know that I’m not a fan of teacher dinners. It makes sense, then, that I’m not exactly sold on teacher trips either.

This is where all of the teachers are asked (i.e., required) to join in an excursion to a ‘famous’ Korean landmark. It is typically capped off with a dinner.

In two years, I’ve only had one of these, and it was actually pretty fun. We went on a mini-hike/caving expedition to Danyang, about 40 minutes away by bus. After a dinner of samgyeopsal (3-layered fat, a.k.a. Korean barbecue), I was back home by eight p.m.

An unexpected highlight of the last teacher trip: Wild horse-man-warrior-guy.

Not bad.

Then I heard whispers of an event to commemorate the end of the first semester. There was talk of an overnight trip.

Oh, hell no.

My ugly American side reared its head. I’m not riding a bus for hours so my every move can be determined by the principal – when & what I eat, when I use the bathroom, when I go to bed, and when I go home. I’m definitely not spending the night on the floor with eight other teachers in the same room. NO. I’m not going.

Sometimes I’m kind of a party pooper.

When the Cool Message (inter-office IM) eventually came, I was relieved that the trip had been scaled back to a one-dayer.

Barely.

After several sessions with Google Translate, this is what I came up with:

12:00 p.m. : Depart Yeongwol

4:00 p.m. : Arrival at a random elementary school for 1 obscure hour of ‘training.’

Total non-bus time: 3 hours 30 minutes, including 1 hour of ‘training’ that will be in Korean, 1 hour of looking at plants, and 1.5 hours eating a meal that is widely available in our own town.

Add in the fact that we start our 3-day English camp the next day, and the whole thing wasn’t exactly appealing. I decided to pretend it wasn’t happening until my co-teacher mentioned it.

“Lauren teacher,” she said. “On school vacation day we have a teacher trip. We will go to a, how can you say, plant place. It is very famous in Korea.”

“It will come back very late, right?” I asked.

“Maybe.”

“And there is training?”

“No training. Just fun time for teachers.”

“I’m not sure if we can go because it comes back so late.”

“Maybe 10 or 11 p.m.,” she said.

“I’ll have to talk to Jared, but I don’t think so. Especially with camp the next day.”

“Lauren teacher, I wish for you to go. It will be a very good opportunity and maybe the last chance before you leave to see this part of Korea. You can let me know by 2 p.m.”

I knew what she was really saying: you are expected to go.

Saying ‘No’ is very complicated in Korea. You have to weigh up the costs and benefits to decide if it’s really worth it. If we said no, it would rock the boat and possibly throw a very faint shadow on our excellent relationship with the school. It’s seen as rejecting an offer of kindness, even though it’s paid for from a kitty that we contribute to.

If we say yes, we’d give up 12 hours of our time, barely be noticed, but earn a lot of goodwill. And it is a very good opportunity to see some plants.

Sigh.

Things can get a little rowdy at the teacher dinners.

In the afternoon, I asked her to clarify some things from the Cool Message.

“This,” I said, pointing at the ‘training’ part. “What is this?”

“Um. Just tour the elementary school for 1 hour.”

“Right. And it takes four hours to get there?”

The school is closer than Seoul, which is only 2 hours away.

“Three hours,” she said. “It takes three hours.”

“But we leave at 12 and arrive at 4?”

“Yes.”

“I see.”

Jared and I held a hushed conference in the corner of the office and begrudgingly reached a decision.

“We can go, I guess,” I said, like a petulant teenager.

My co-teacher didn’t have to add our names to the list because they were already there. As we suspected, the ‘choice’ wasn’t really optional in the end.

It’s hard not to. Food is such a big part of any culture, and also, I love food.

Specifically ice cream and baked goods, but let’s not get off topic.

Dining in Korea completely discombobulated me at first. We eat on the floor? We share food? We cook meat at the table? I’m not sure I can take this on board.

Of course it all seems normal now, but that’s after nearly 2 years of doing it.

School lunches were equally as overwhelming. Teachers and students all eat together at long tables in the cafeteria. We don’t sit on the floor, but we all wait in line to collect our silver spoons, chopsticks, and trays.

There are some things you can always count on in my school cafeteria.

Mondays are fish days.

Wednesdays are ‘special’: i.e., fruit, mixed rice, and a juice or yogurt drink.

Rice, kimchi, and soup are everyday staples.

The tray must be placed with the three small circles on top, two large towards you. Otherwise you will be ridiculed by students and teachers alike.

Children do not bring their lunches. I’ve never even seen a lunchbox.

We have a nutritionist who makes up the menu, and according to my co-teacher, all of the ingredients must be organic. Apparently it’s a new law, instigated this year. I’m not entirely convinced, but the lunches have been tasting better.

School lunch in Korea is nothing like my childhood school lunches in Indiana. Last week, I took covert pictures each day so I could proudly bring you this: A week in Korean lunches.

All translations are courtesy of Google Translate. I’ve listed the dishes in clockwise order, starting from the top left.

Monday

Monday. The dreaded fish day.

콩나물오색채 – Sprouts five colors (I count…three.)

꽁치무조림 – Pike and stewed radish

배추김치 – Kimchi

시금치된장국 – Spinach Soup

보리밥 – Barley Rice

Tuesday

A Tuesday surprise of fried meat. Totally made up for the seaweed soup.

깻잎순나물 – Herbs, sesame net (‘herbs’ = namul, or weeds picked by ajummas on the side of the road)

Every year the Yeongwol County office pays for a group of sixth-grade students to go to an English speaking country for a month during the school vacation. This year, our school had to choose five students to send to New Zealand.

As part of the selection criteria, the applicants sat down for brief interviews with Jared and me.

There were 45 applicants, and I had 45 seconds with each one. Here are some of those interviews.

*Students’ names have been changed.

* * * * *

Me: Hello. Can you tell me your name, please?

Bora: Teacher? Don’t you remember my name?

Me: Yes, Bora. But can you please tell me anyway? It’s part of the interview.

Bora: Bora. I mean, hello, my name is Bora.

* * * * *

Me: When is your birthday?

Subin: Pass.

She didn’t make the cut.

* * * * *

Me: When is your birthday?

Minsu: Opens mouth, then closes it. Okay. Yes, I understand the question. But wait a minute. Leans forward. Can you use this information in a bad way?

Me: Um, no. It’s the same question I ask everyone. It’s just to see if you can answer it.

Minsu: Okay…My birthday is October 29th.

Me: Why do you want to go to New Zealand?

Minsu: I want to see the animal with duck feet and a duck mouth but fur.

Me: …? Oh! A platypus! You want to see a platypus.

Minsu: Yes. And kangaroos and the koalas.

I didn’t have the heart to explain the difference between New Zealand and Australia.

Me: That’s great, Minsu. You’re all done. Thanks!

Minsu: Teacher. The question about my birthday. Was it okay? My answer, was it okay?

Me: Is October 29th really your birthday?

Minsu: Yes.

Me: Then it’s okay. Please don’t worry.

He later asked Jared if I was going to look up his birthday on the internet.

* * * * *

Me: So why do you want to go to New Zealand?

Taeho: Glances nervously towards the door. My mother. She says if I don’t go, she will HIT ME! Swings arm through the air.

I’ve met this kid’s mother. I can see her making the threat, but not following through with it.

* * * * *

Me: So why do you want to go to New Zealand?

Mina: I want to be a diplomat, so I need to learn English.

Insu: I want to be a diplomat, so English is important.

Chan: I need to learn English because I want to be a diplomat.

Jinho: Because I want to eat PASTA!

* * * * *

Me: Have you ever been abroad before?

Jeongin: No. Shakes head. Wait! Grins. Yes, I have.

Me: Oh, really? Where?

Jeongin: Jeju. I have been to Jeju.

Jeju is an island province of Korea.

* * * * *

If I could send every one of those kids to New Zealand, I would. As it turns out, ‘Minsu’ is in the handful of lucky ones. In July, he’s off to the land of the long white cloud. I feel a responsibility to break the news about the absence of platypus, but I’ll try to soften the blow by talking up the kiwi bird. At least he can’t blame me for judging him unfavorably on the basis of his birthdate.

The teacher dinner. If you teach English at a public school in Korea, there’s no avoiding it.

Truthfully, I dread these dinners. I never know if they’re going to go for one hour or three. Most of the time I don’t even know that they’re happening until the morning of the event.

Dinners are solitary social events for a non-Korean speaker. For several hours, I sit on the floor and pick at fat-encrusted pork while all of my co-workers chat and get boozed on soju. It’s my fault – I really dropped the ball on studying Korean after the first year.

When I heard on Friday about a 6th grade teacher dinner for Monday, I was immediately seized with one thought:

How can I get out of this?

Then I realized that I couldn’t, and nor should I. It’s all part of the experience of teaching in Korea. If I wanted to avoid awkward moments, coming here was the wrong move.

So I considered myself lucky that I’d gotten advance notice and steeled myself for Monday evening.

Here’s how it played out.

5:23 The school nurse drives me and my co-teacher to a duck restaurant. We are the first to arrive. I stand back while the two women discuss seating arrangements. The most important people always sit in the middle, so we settle onto our floor cushions at the very end of the table.

5:25 The sixth grade teachers arrive. They sit at the opposite end of the table, leaving an odd gap in the middle.

5:27 Everyone stands up abruptly, so I copy them. We bow and greet the head teacher, a 50-year old ajumma wearing some sort of leopard print sofa fabric. She assumes her position to the left of center, and we all sit back down.

5:29 The vice principal enters. Everyone stands. It’s just like playing My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean. He sits next to the head teacher and adjusts his belt buckle for the forthcoming duck feast. When he sits, we sit.

Rule of thumb: If the kids are involved in an event, the teachers will have a dinner.

5:31 The moment we’ve all been waiting for: the principal has arrived. I linger on my knees for a bit, thinking “Seriously?” Yes, seriously. I stand. The principal is about ninety, and the nicest man you’ll ever meet. He insists that we should sit down, but no one budges until he lowers himself onto his cushion in the prime spot. My knees crack loudly as I sit.

5:35 Plates of raw duck meat are delivered to the table. The women busy themselves with inserting the skewered meat into tabletop rotisserie cookers while the men crack open bottles of soju.

5:40 The head teacher gives a speech. The women who were previously tending to the duck scramble around to make sure everyone has a full shot glass for the toast. I take cider (Sprite) and try to smile like I know what’s going on. She shouts, “Oui-yo!” and everyone clinks glasses, fighting to keep their glass lower than the others in order to show appropriate levels of respect. We raise our glasses with two hands and turn our heads to the side, the customary way of taking a shot.

5:50 The head teacher of the sixth grade gives a speech. I watch the fat drip off of the duck meat as it rotates slowly. It is hypnotizing.

5:53 The meat is ready. I volunteer to transfer it from the skewer to the tray, awkwardly flicking a piece of meat across the table in the process. Everyone at my section of the table has a good chuckle. My co-teacher tries to take over and accidentally spatters the head teacher’s left hand with duck fat.

5:54 Panic ensues. The nurse whips out her wet wipe and dabs the head teacher’s hand. My co-teacher lunges across the table and attacks with her own wet wipe. I do nothing.

6:05 I realize that I haven’t spoken a word to anyone except for ‘oui-yo’ during the toasts.

6:10 People approach the principal with shot glasses and bottles of soju. As a mark of respect, it’s the done thing to offer the higher-ups a shot at least once during the meal. The principal accepts them all with good grace, but pours most of them into the nearest bowl. It’s the thought that counts.

At least I'll always have side dishes to keep me company. Image by aromacookery

6:30 I experiment with the side dishes, eating shredded greenery in individual pieces so as to keep busy. Fleetingly, I wish I hadn’t abandoned my Korean studies last semester. Then I remember how no one could understand my pronunciation anyway.

6:45 My co-teacher, who has been chatting at the other end of the table, returns. She and the vice principal start talking about me, but not to me. I realize she is telling him about our vacation in India. I get so excited, I join in on the conversation. The first thing I say is, “India, train, very sick.” Then I mime vomiting, all while the voice in my head is going, Lauren, stop talking right now. The conversation sort of dwindles away after that.

7:00 I accept another pity shot from the principal.

7:05 The duck rotisseries have all been turned off, chopsticks abandoned, and side dishes emptied. I take this as a good sign – surely the dinner will wrap up soon. Then I remember – rice. Rice always comes at the end of a meal. That’s another half an hour at least. The new 6th grade PE teacher sits next to me and offers me a shot. “Cid-uh or soju?” he asks. “Soju,” I say.

7:10 The PE teacher reveals that he speaks a little bit of English. This is mainly because he has been drinking ‘English juice,’ as soju is also known. He insists that his friend has seen me at the pool, and says that I must be a good swimmer. I’ve never been to the pool, but I don’t have the heart to tell him that.

7:15 “Stop!” shouts a male voice from the opposite end of the table. One of the sixth grade homeroom teachers is jokingly telling the young PE teacher that he should leave me alone, I’m spoken for. “Just talking!” he hastily explains, as everyone laughs. Embarrassed, he picks up his bottle of soju and joins the party at the other end of the table.

7:20 The rice arrives. I have never seen people eat so slowly. My legs ache.

7:30 The vice principal looks at his watch, then signals the 6th grade head teacher. She nudges one of the male teachers, who retrieves a full bottle of soju from the kitchen and circulates until he has filled everyone’s glass. We toast one last time. The new PE teacher delivers an unexpected one-liner that makes everyone laugh, nearly to the point of tears. I laugh, too. It is so funny that another bottle of soju is produced.

7:32 We take our final shot. This time, everyone stands up. I am the only one groaning as my sore legs unfurl after 2 hours of sitting cross-legged.

7:35 The nurse drives me back to the school so I can get my bicycle. We learn that we were born in the same year, 1981, and we both think it is too cold in the morning. Just as our mutual language runs out, we arrive at the school.

7:40 I detour to Baskin Robbins, blaming the principal for getting me liquored up and abandoning my healthy eating plan.

7:55 Happily nursing an ice cream coma on the couch, I decide that maybe teacher dinners aren’t so bad after all.

Me and Baskin Robbins speak the same language. Image by opencage

]]>http://lateralmovements.com/anatomy-of-a-teacher-dinner/feed/132336Five Compelling Reasons to Teach English in Koreahttp://lateralmovements.com/five-compelling-reasons-to-teach-english-in-korea/
http://lateralmovements.com/five-compelling-reasons-to-teach-english-in-korea/#commentsThu, 01 Dec 2011 12:20:12 +0000http://www.lateralmovements.com/?p=1756I could (and do) prattle on about experiencing Korean culture, loving my students, or the low cost of rural life. I could tell you that the pay in Korea is among the highest for foreign English teachers, and that you get cash bonuses for flights, re-signing, and completing your contract. I could even talk about how I’m learning to snowboard for only 170,000 won a season or how LASIK surgery in Korea fixed my astigmatism without eviscerating my bank account.

'Learning' is the key phrase here.

All of those things are true, but they aren’t the reason I signed on to teach English for a second year.

The five most compelling reasons why I am still in Korea can be summed up by my travel plans for 2012:

Seven weeks of paid vacation followed by four months of travel, all financed by my teacher’s salary.

Here are the destinations that you’ll read about in Lateral Movements in 2012, and my five reasons why you should consider teaching English in Korea.

1. India

Image Credit: Flickr, particlem

On December 31st, Jared and I fly to Shanghai. Certain foreign visitors, including Australians and Americans, can spend up to 48 hours in Shanghai without a visa. (Note: there are some conditions on transit visas, so please check out the details before taking my word for it!) After a whirlwind 23 hours of New Year’s Eve celebrations, we’ll continue on to Delhi.

We’re in India from Jan. 1st – 22nd. We’re focusing on Rajasthan, with a few days in Varanasi and a tiger safari in Madhya Pradesh thrown in. All of our train tickets and hostels are booked – with a limited amount of time, we wanted to take care of all that in advance. It’ll be sleeper class all the way, whether the journey is 14 hours long or 2 hours. According to India Mike, sleeper class presents an ‘interesting challenge’ and is a ‘great way to meet the locals.’

Yeah, I called that a ‘vacation.’ The planning part was a nightmare, but luckily we found a 7 bedroom holiday house in Hau’ula for a great price. 7 days there, then 4 days in Lahaina, Maui. Now that the flights, cars and hotels are booked, I am really excited about this trip.

Have you ever noticed that when you start thinking about going somewhere, that place suddenly jumps out at you everywhere you turn? It was like that with Hawaii. Suddenly, I kept stumbling across travel blogs full of information and photos about Oahu and Maui. Must be the universe’s way of telling me that I made the right decision.

Whatever it is, bring on February.

3. Japan

Image Credit: Flickr, strandell

I cannot, in good faith, miss out on visiting Japan. It would be like growing up in Connecticut and never making it to New York City.

Our summer holiday is likely to fall a few weeks before we finish our contract in Korea. We didn’t want to go somewhere extravagant, because there’s a much bigger trip right around the corner (see #4!). That’s why it seems like a perfect time to take the two-hour flight to Japan. I don’t know where we’ll go – at the moment we’re thinking Tokyo and Okinawa.

I have to admit, Japan sort of feels like it’s on the to-do list, but I’m looking forward to doing it.

Image Credit: Flickr, thejourney1972

4. South America

August 26th, 2012 is the day we start our four-month backpacking adventure around South America.

But it’s been three years since I’ve been backpackingfor more than 3 weeks, and the anticipation is growing. We may have to stop and look for work along the way, but that’s all part of the fun. At this point, another job can only enhance my resume. What’s 36 jobs when you’ve already had 35, right?

Don’t answer that.

5. Indiana

This is why Jared comes to Indiana.

You read that right. It says ‘Indiana.’

I was last in Indiana in August of 2010. It’s my home town. It’s where my parents live and where my oldest girlfriends are. It’s where I can walk less than 1 mile to reach a SuperTarget, McDonald’s, Starbucks, KFC, Wendy’s, Subway, or Dairy Queen.

I won’t walk, though. I’ll drive.

Because I can do that, there, too.

But most of all, I’m ready to be home for Christmas. I am so sick of missing the holidays, and it’s time to do something about that.

After that – who knows?

There are a few ideas brewing, but that’s a plan for later. What I do know is that none of these trips would be possible if I wasn’t a public school teacher in Korea.

The kids aren’t the only ones who are getting lazy towards the end of the school year.

I am, too.

For example, I taught my free talking class how to play ‘Yahtzee’ on Thursday. My concession to education was that they had to say the numbers in English. They didn’t do this, of course, but I let it slide.

Yahtzee went so well that we played it on Friday, too. Now I’ve got a class of fifth graders who can tell you the difference between a full house and a large straight. Maybe I won’t win teacher of the year, but I’ve done worse.

Today I pulled out another old favorite: Mad Libs.

Mad Libs were a primary source of entertainment for me between the ages of 10 and 14. Sentences like “My furry pet dolphin likes to eat squirrels,” sparked hysterical laughter, sometimes to the point of tears. Mad Libs’ popularity hit its peak during puberty, when my friends and I filled them out like this:

adjective: sexy

plural noun: butts

adverb: sexily

verb ending in -ing: doing it (sex was like the word ‘Voldemort’ at Hogwarts. We weren’t brave enough to use it as a verb.)

I assumed my students would be a little bit more mature with their Mad Libs, mainly because they don’t know how to say ‘butt’ yet.

That was until I gave them some ammunition.

“Does anybody know what ‘verb’ is in Korean?” I asked. Then it hit me – I knew how to say ‘verb’ in Korean.

Time to show off my skills.

“Dong-sa,” I said.

Only I must have said it like this: “ddong-sa,” because all ten of my students started cackling with laughter. Jong-woo even tumbled to the ground in seizures of joy.

“What?” I asked. “What does ddong-sa me- Oh.”

Dong-sa means ‘verb’, but ddong-sa is a variation of the word ‘shit.’

I know. It doesn’t make sense to me, either. After 14 months in Korea, I still can’t hear the difference, much less pronounce it.

Jong-woo was now experiencing muscle spasms and the other three boys were slamming their hands against their desks. Even the well-behaved girls were laughing out loud. No one was capable of saying anything besides “ddong-sa.”

“OK,” I said, trying in vain to restore order to the class. “OK. Who can give me an example of a verb?”

Stupid question.

“Elephant ddong-sa.”

“Gorilla ddong-sa.”

“My ddong-sa.”

I tried to clarify that ddong-sa was actually a noun, not a verb.

In the midst of my explanation, Geun-hui remembered something and pitched forward with renewed laughter.

Most of the boys never made a Mad Lib. Instead, they took turns saying ‘ddong-sa’ for the rest of the class.

The girls and Geun-hui pulled it together long enough to fill out their worksheets.

Most popular words included: man, woman, fat, dirty, and scary. The end results went something like this:

Because we collected the most women, our class won a scary pizza party. When I got to the cafeteria, my hair started to water. I could smell the gooey melted men and hot, fat crust.

One time I told my fat little brother to put five super-spicy men in his teeth for a full minute.

The doctor was a dirty woman with bad breath and a cold body.

It’s a really good thing that they’re too young to pick up on sexual innuendos.

Anything that included the word ‘fat’ was an immediate hit. I had been expecting to see a couple of ddong-sas, but there weren’t any. That’s probably because they weren’t listening when I told them it was a noun.

I feel like they learned something, but I’m not sure what it was – That their teacher can’t speak Korean? That ‘fat’ is a really funny adjective? That if you say ‘ddong-sa’ enough times Lauren Teacher will let you roll around on the floor instead of doing work?